I think it was Monty Don (who’s book, The Complete Gardener, is one which is by my bedside a lot) who coined the phrase the Jewel garden. When I drove down to Dorset this afternoon – through the hazily beautiful, brilliant last day of September (one to remember for years) – I arrived at the Parsonage as dusk was settling across the valley. The garden was glowing in the extraordinary light and no description was more apt.
It’s all a bit confused out there – um hello WHY exactly is there an iris in flower just now (and, even more weirdly, cowslips)? I guess this is just another facet of the strange landscape that is 2011. But despite the fact that I’ve completely neglected everything for months, there is a curious autumnal coherence to it all.
There is I think a wonderful feeling to this late burst of Indian Summer… a brief fragment when time – which is rushing so fast at the moment – is suddenly stilled. I have friends staying for the weekend, and I am relishing lazy hours doing nothing. Then the sunshine will pass, and I suspect autumn gales and log fires and chill rain will be just around the corner. I will be looking forward to them when they arrive. But let us all enjoy this time all the more while it is here.
